This is an exciting time to join our market leading Residential Development Unit as the team continues to win repeat and new work from its impressive client base of recognised national and regional housebuilders. As a paralegal in our fantastic Leeds based team you will enjoy working in a fast-paced environment supporting senior fee earners together with taking responsibility for your own case load.
Typical duties/responsibilities (particularly on first joining the team) will include drafting and negotiating ancillary documents to large-scale transactions, negotiating and completing affordable housing transfers and dealing with SDLT and HM Land Registry applications. The role also involves supporting major projects by running date rooms and coordinating local and national teams on major due diligence and other projects.
The successful individual will have direct contact with numerous clients and suits a candidate who is willing to throw themselves in to new challenges while working alongside clients and a supportive Gateley team.
The team
We are the leading residential development and urban regeneration legal team in the country acting for 18 of the top 20 UK housebuilders, institutional landowners such as Oxford University and other large-scale sector participants.
We advise over the complete life cycle of new build housing from initial heads of terms, acquiring the land, obtaining planning permission, building out the scheme and the sale of the new homes. Schemes range from local developments of 50 new homes up to 20,000 unit green field urban extensions and multi-billion pound urban regeneration schemes in central London. We also advise our PLC clients at Group level on national issues such as cladding remediation post-Grenfell and Competition and Markets Authority investigations.
The team, which is over 240 strong and is based in 8 of our offices across England, operates within Gateley Plc's Property Platform. This Platform comprises over 700 lawyers, surveyors, engineers, architects, accountants and support staff who provide a unique cross-disciplinary service delivery to out wider property client base.
Part of the team's is the sale of the new homes once built. These sales, which total approximately 15,000 plots and £3 billion in revenue each year, are handled by the Plot Sales team out of three regional hubs using highly developed IT processes and automation.
The person
Personality fit is absolutely key in this role and our successful candidate will be a personable, enthusiastic and confident individual with excellent client management skills. They will have completed their undergraduate degree and ideally their LPC (but this is not essential).
Candidates will be able to demonstrate the following attributes:
- Excellent commercial acumen
- Great communication skills, both written and verbal
- Commitment to forging strong working relationships with our clients
- Ability and willingness to learn
- Strong attention to detail and ability to identify those areas where they need to seek help or advice from colleagues
- An organised, methodical and proactive approach in managing time, work priorities and deadlines
- A strong team working ethic
- Good IT skills, ideally including previous experience of working with a case management system
- Discretion and professionalism at all times
- Calum under pressure and able to operate efficiently in a fast-paced and demanding working environment
- Ability to proactively chase matters when required and regularly report (externally to the clients and internally for management purposes) to ensure that the client is always updated
- Demonstrate quick response times
The benefits
With support, coaching and feedback from some of the most engaging colleagues around our great development and progression opportunities will reward your commitment and loyalty. We offer a competitive remuneration package where you'll be rewarded for your individual performance with an opportunity to receive an annual bonus.
In addition, we have a wide range of learning and development opportunities via our Learn platform to develop new skills and progress your career. Our My Flex comprehensive rewards package includes options covering annual leave (and the benefit of purchasing extra days), cycle to work, critical illness benefit, employee assistance programme, group personal pension, health care, season ticket loan and many more benefits (grade dependent). Finally, with Perks At Work/Home you can select a host of retail benefits that suit your needs alongside a Community Online Academy, free courses for all from fitness to coding to languages to hip hop dance.